rations, that a coach, whether drawn by two horfes or by fix, the fame duty.

pays

As to the third kind, I am grieved to obferve, that we have many taxes more hurtful to individuals than advantageous to the public revenue. Multiplied taxes on the neceffaries of life, candle, foap, leather, ale, falt, &c. raife the price of labour, and confequently of manufactures. If they fhall have the effect to deprive us of foreign markets, which we have reafon to dread, depopulation and poverty muft enfue. The falt-tax in particular is more out of rule than any of the others mentioned: with refpect to these, the rich bear the greatest burden, being the greatest confumers ; but the share they pay of the falt-tax is very little, because they never touch falt provifions. The falt-tax is ftill more abfurd in another refpect, falt being a choice manure for land. One would be amazed to hear of a law prohibiting the use of lime as a manure: he would be ftill more amazed to hear of the prohibition being extended to falt, which is a manure much fuperior: and yet a heavy tax on falt, which renders it too dear for being ufed as a manure, furprises no man. But the mental eye, when left without culture, refembles that of the body: it feldom perceives but what is directly before it: inferences and confequences go far out of fight. Many thoufand quarters of good wheat have been annually with-held from Britain by the falt-tax. What the

pace, fo as to equal horfes both in the plough and in the waggon. The people of Malabar use no other animal for the plough nor for burdens. About Pondichery no beafts of burden are to be feen but oxen. The vaft increafe of horses of late years for luxury as well as for draught, makes a great confumption of oats. If in husbandry oxen only were ufed, which require no oats, many thoufand acres would be faved for wheat and barley. But the advantages of oxen would not be confined to the farmer. Beef would become much cheaper to the manufacturer, by the vast addition of fat oxen fent to market; and the price of leather and tallow would fall; a national benefit, as every one ufes fhoes and candles.

treasury

treafury has gained, will not amount to the fiftieth part of that loss. The abfurdity of with-holding from us a manure fo profitable, has at last been difcovered; and remedied in part, by permitting English foul falt to be used for manure, on paying four pence of duty per bufhel (a). Why was not Scotland permitted to taste of that bounty? Our candidates, it would appear, are more folicitous of a feat in parliament, than of ferving their country when they have obtained that honour.

The window-tax is more detrimental to the common interest than advantageous to the public revenue. In the first place, it promotes large farms in order to fave houfes and windows; whereas small farms tend to multiply a hardy and frugal race, useful for every purpose. In the next place, it is a difcouragement to manufactures, by taxing the houfes in which they are carried on. Manufacturers, in order to relieve themselves as much as poffible from the tax, make the whole fide of their houfe a fingle window; and there are inftances where in three stories there are but three windows. The tax, at the fame time, is impofed with no degree of equality: a house in a paultry village that affords not five pounds of yearly rent, may have a greater number of windows than one in London rented at fifty. In this respect it runs counter to found policy, by eafing the rich, and burdening the poor. The fame objection lies against the plate-tax. It is not indeed hurtful to manufactures and commerce: but it is hurtful to the common intereft; because plate converted into money may be the means of saving the nation at a crifis, and therefore ought to be encouraged, instead of being loaded with a tax. On pictures imported into Britain, a duty is laid in proportion to the fize. Was there no intelligent perfon at hand, to inform our legislature, that the only means to roufe a genius for painting, is

(a) 8° Geo. III. cap. 25.

to

to give our youth ready accefs to good pictures? Till these be multiplied in Britain, we never fhall have the reputation of producing a good painter. painter. So far indeed it is lucky, that the most valuable pictures are not loaded with a greater duty than the most execrable. Fish, both falt and fresh, brought to Paris, pay a duty of 48 per cent. by an arbitrary estimation of the value. This tax is an irreparable injury to France, by discouraging the multiplication of feamen. It is beneficial indeed in one view, as it tends to check the growing population of that great city.

Without waiting to rummage the British taxes for examples of the fourth kind, I shall present my reader with a foreign instance. In the Austrian Netherlands, there are inexhauftible mines of coal, the exportation of which would make a confiderable article of commerce, were it not abfolutely barred by an exorbitant duty. This abfurd duty is a great injury to proprietors of coal, without yielding a farthing to the government. The Dutch many years ago offered to confine themselves to that country for coal, on condition of being relieved from the duty; which would have brought down the price below that of British coal. Is it not wonderful, that the proposal was rejected? But ministers seldom regard what is beneficial to the nation, unless it produce an immediate benefit to their fovereign or to themselves. The coal-mines in the Austrian Netherlands being thus fhut up, and the art of working them loft, the British enjoy the monopoly of exporting coal to Holland.

The duty on coal water-born is an instance of the fifth kind.

Α great obstruction it is to many useful manufactures that require coal; and indeed to manufactures in general, by increasing the expence of coal, an effential article in a cold country. Nay, one would imagine, that it has been intended to check population; as poor wretches benumbed with cold, feel little of the carnal appetite. It has not even the merit of adding much to the public re

venue; for, laying afide London, it produces but a mere trifle. But the peculiarity of this tax, which intitles it to a confpicuous place in the fifth clafs, is, that it is not lefs detrimental to the public revenue than to individuals. No fedentary art nor occupation, can fucceed in a cold climate without plenty of fewel. One may at the first glance distinguish the coal-countries from the rest of England, by the industry of the inhabitants, and by plenty of manufacturing towns and villages. Where there is scarcity of fewel, fome hours are loft every morning; because people cannot work till the place be fufficiently warmed, which is especially the cafe in manufactures that require a soft and delicate finger. Now, in many parts of Britain which might be provided with coal by water, the labouring poor are deprived of that comfort by the tax. Had cheap firing encouraged these people to profecute arts and manufactures; it is more than probable, that at this day they' would be contributing to the public revenue by other duties, much greater fums than are drawn from them by the duty on coal. At the fame time, if coal must pay a duty, why not at the pit, where it is cheapest? Is it not an egregious blunder, to lay a great duty on those who pay a high price for coal, and no duty on those who have it cheap? If there must be a coal-duty, let water-born coal at any rate be exempted; not only because even without duty it comes dear to the confumer, but also for the encouragement of feamen. For the honour of Britain this duty ought to be expunged from our ftatute-book, never again to fhow its face. Great reafon indeed there is for continuing the duty on coal confumed in London; because every artifice fhould be put in practice, to prevent the increase of a head, that is already too large for the body, or for any body. Towns are unhealthy in proportion to their fize; and a great town like London is a greater enemy to population than war or famine.

SECT.

SE CT. VII.

REGULATIONS for advancing INDUSTRY and COM

MERCE.

OF

F all sciences, that of politics is the most intricate; and its progrefs toward maturity is flow in proportion. In the present section, taxes on exportation of native commodities take the lead; and nothing can fet in a stronger light the grofs ignorance of former ages, than a maxim univerfally adopted, That to tax exportation, or to prohibit it altogether, is the best means for having plenty at home. In Scotland we were not fatisfied with prohibiting the exportation of corn, of fish, and of horses: the prohibition was extended to manufactures, linen cloth, for example, candle, butter, cheese, barked hides, fhoes * (a).

Duties on exportation are in great favour, from a notion that they are paid by foreigners. This holds fometimes, as in the above-mentioned cafe of coal exported to Holland: but it fails in every cafe where the foreign market can be fupplied by others;

* Oil was the only commodity that by the laws of Solon was permitted to be exported from Attica. The figs of that country, which are delicious, came to be produced in fuch plenty, that there was no fufficient confumpt for them at home; and yet the law prohibiting exportation was not abrogated. Sycophant denotes a perfon who informs against the exporter of figs: but the prohibition appearing abfurd, fycophant became a term of reproach.

(a) Act 59. parl. 1573

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